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Why do
romantic comedies make it so hard on themselves? All a good one really needs is
charismatic stars whom the audience wants to see together, and a plot with the
obligatory roadblocks the romantic duo can successfully navigate without
breaking the spell of their chemistry. For a recipe with so few ingredients,
Hollywood has made an incredibly large amount of bad dishes. The reason so many
romantic comedies fail is that they are micro-managed to the point of madness.
Something that should be as light as a soufflé is almost always served with the
consistency of a brick.

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"Elsa &
Fred" is the latest brick soufflé thrown at an unsuspecting audience. This movie
is so tone-deaf that it tries to wring charm from questionable stereotypes
about senior citizens and minorities. The latter is so completely out of place
that it gives "Elsa & Fred" an air of elitism that I assume was not
intentional. The former drives the plot, and despite the presence of the
extremely charming Oscar-winning actors Christopher Plummer and Shirley
MacLaine, one cannot help but root for this couple to stay the hell away from
each other. The pitch meeting must have been “it’s the typical bad romantic
comedy…but with OLD PEOPLE!!”

For its senior-aged
couple, “Elsa & Fred” presents a grouch and a compulsive liar, the latter
of whom is so incredibly unlikeable that you root for the grouch to drive her away forever. At least the grouch has
reason for his temperament: Fred (Plummer) is a recently widowed man whose
shrew stereotype of a daughter Lydia (Marcia Gay Harden—another Oscar winner
completely wasted here) treats him as if he’s gone senile. Lydia hires an
African-American caregiver (Erika Alexander) for Fred. The caregiver’s '80s
aerobics instructor look and street vernacular get insulted by Lydia, and, in
one unfortunate scene, Alexander holds up a watermelon in close-up and without
irony.

While Lydia
represents the “those pesky young people are so ungrateful” subplot, Plummer
hooks into these early scenes of resentment and bitterness, embodying them with
a deeply internalized, unspoken suffering. You almost want his Garbo-like wish
to be left alone to be granted, if only so he can reconcile the death of a wife
he actually hated.

But this is
a romance, so one must allow for the hope that someone will rouse Fred from his
misery. Enter Elsa (Shirley MacLaine), Fred’s next door neighbor. Elsa is the
type of character a bad film has to constantly remind you to like. She’s a liar
whose lies would doom all but the most masochistic relationships. She lies to
Fred about her marital status, her family and her health. She does this while
trying to drag the distrustful Fred from his shell and into a world where he
can trust without fear.

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Neither the
flighty, spirited characteristics of the youthful MacLaine nor the mama-bear
fierceness of the latter-day “Terms of Endearment” Shirley could save Elsa from
being an annoying device. Elsa puts Fred on a multi-step “process” to help “cure”
him, but every time Fred steps forward in progress, one of her lies knocks him
backwards with the force of a Mike Tyson punch. Elsa cleans things up by saying
“trust me without reservations!” And Fred continues to trust her. It’s supposed
to be romantic; it’s pathetic.

“Elsa &
Fred” gets so desperate for us to love Elsa that it not only saddles her with
an illness that will eventually kill her, it also introduces her husband (James
Brolin) as a last reel plot development. Brolin gets an absurd speech that
would put his son Josh’s peach-cobbler ramblings in “Labor Day” to shame. After
reiterating every single reason why Elsa is toxic, Brolin says “don’t make the
mistake I did in letting her get away!” You’ll want to yell “Don’t listen to
Babs’s husband! Run, Fred, RUN!!”

Adding
insult to injury, “Elsa & Fred” refers
to “La Dolce Vita” in almost every other scene. It goes so far in its
comparison to the superior Fellini film that it recreates the most famous scene
from “La Dolce Vita”, complete with black and white cinematography. The
intercutting of the smoking-hot, youthful Anita Ekberg with the much older
(though still attractive) MacLaine mimicking her is the epitome of camp. And the
scene of Plummer feeding a kitten yogurt with a spoon at Trevi Fountain should cause the cat-loving
Internet to burst into flames.

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But I
digress. George Segal, Scott Bakula and Chris Noth show up on occasion in
barely fleshed-out roles, and Wendell Pierce provides mild amusement as an
accident-prone landlord. They’re given little to do, but provide mildly
entertaining distractions. Segal in particular reminds us how good he is at
stealing a scene.

Behind the
camera, director Michael Radford and his cinematographer Michael McDonough make
the most of “Elsa & Fred”’s New Orleans setting. The music by Luis Bacalov
(“Il Postino”) is sweet enough to deserve a better movie.

Speaking of
music, the sole moment of entertainment in "Elsa & Fred" occurs during the
closing credits. Over his trademark piano playing, New Orleans legend Dr. John duets
beautifully with Dee Dee Bridgewater. The song recaps the film’s dreadful plot
in its lyrics, but the charismatic interplay between the singers is so good
that it made me want to watch the movie they were describing. These singers
know how to cook a romantic comedy soufflé. Save your money and buy the song,
or better yet, go rent “La Dolce Vita.”

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